"He'll make it," the doctor said, "but he's lost about a third of his heart capacity. He'll have to take it easy from now on."
Bat smiled. "What chance do you think there is he will ever slow down?"
Angie shook her head. "He dictated a letter to you. He did it when he began to feel the symptoms and after I'd called an ambulance. I borrowed a typewriter here in the hospital and typed it out. It isn't signed, but it's what he wants, and I think you will be justified in acting on it."
The letter read:
It appears likely that I will be some time recovering from the flu. You will have to take on some additional responsibility for a while. That being the case, increase your salary to $125,000. Take it from Cord Explosives.
I authorize you to act as my surrogate in all corporate matters for such time as may be necessary. Don't overlook Cord Explosives or Cord Plastics. They are more secure sources of revenue than the airline, the hotels, or TV production.
You may require some assistance. See if you can get your friend David Amory to leave his firm and become full-time counsel to us — that is, if you want him. Having a lawyer you trust is very important.
You'll have to tend to business for a while. Consider living in New York. I urge you to come here alone. You know what I mean.
Give me complete reports as often as you can, as soon as I am able to receive them.
As Bat read the letter, he lowered his chin slowly to his chest, and his eyes flooded with tears.
11
Not until two days later was Jonas able to communicate in anything but an incoherent mumble. He smiled on Jo-Ann and Angie and thanked them for their concern, then said he wanted to talk with Bat alone, about business.
Bat drew a chair up to the bed. "I'm sorry about this," he said. "The doctor says you're going to be okay."
"Cut the shit and listen to me," said Jonas. "Lean over this way, so I don't have to yell. Now listen. Morris Chandler is talking to guys he shouldn't be talking to. Carlo Vulcano, Pietro Gibellina, and John Stefano."
"How do you know?"
"When I was living on the fifth floor. Chandler hooked me into his private telephone system. I didn't trust him, so I had my people rewire the whole system, unbeknownst to him. He routes his calls through a telephone drop in San Diego, so FBI types tapping those guys' phones won't figure it out they're talking to a hotel in Vegas. Of course, they never use names. They talk in codes. Chandler's code name is Maurie. Nevada called him that, so it's got some kind of meaning."
"What do you think they're doing?"
"They want to block us from putting up the Intercontinental Vegas. They don't want the competition. They want to use the casinos their way, and we're an embarrassment to them."
"What do you think they'll do?"
"Give us trouble getting building permits. See if they can arrange some strikes. Who knows? I don't think they'll try violence. Do you carry a gun?"
Bat shook his head.
"Well, I have for many years, on and off. I suggest you think about it."
20
1
THE SECOND WEEK AFTER JONAS SUFFERED HIS HEART attack, Sonja flew to New York. Bat met her at Kennedy Airport and took her to the apartment in the Waldorf Towers. She went the next day to visit Jonas at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
Bat offered to drive her, but she insisted she would take a cab. She wanted to do some shopping, too, and would meet him for lunch at the 21 Club at one-fifteen. Her first cab driver, a Puerto Rican, took a sympathetic interest in her when she spoke Spanish to him and suggested she remove a diamond ring and an emerald bracelet she was wearing and carry them in her purse. She thanked him for his advice and did what he said. He could not have guessed she was wearing a jeweled platinum belt worth more than the combined value of the ring and bracelet, plus his taxicab.
Jonas was grateful to her for coming. He was sitting up now, propped up by pillows and the mechanical bed. He was thinner already and looked a bit fragile. He had a better color, just the same. Maybe that was because this was the first time since his hospitalization after the crash of The Centurion that he had gone twelve whole days without a drink.
He was in a mood to speak earnestly, driven undoubtedly by his brush with mortality. "Do you have any idea how grateful I am to you for rearing our son to be the man he is?" he asked her. "Here I am, out of it. Bat is a godsend for me. Who else could I trust to take responsibility for everything?"
"You have a loyal staff," she said.
"They are not Cords," said Jonas with a tone of finality in his voice that suggested that was a complete answer.
"He is," she said. "I can see that."
"But Sonja ... He doesn't like me. Why doesn't he like me?"
"Because the two of you are of a piece," she said sharply. "Both of you ought to see that."
"Christ, I've offered him the world! I've given him ..." He stopped, shrugged.
Sonja nodded and did not comment. She was trying to assess the damage this man had sustained. Her memories of him were — first, of the twenty-one-year-old stud she had accompanied to Europe: handsome, muscular, filled with optimism and enthusiasm; and, second, the matured and self-confident entrepreneur she had met for the second time four years ago. He was fifty-two years old now, young to have suffered a heart attack. It was apparent that he knew it. He had planned at least twenty more vigorous years, without limitations, and now he had to reassess his plans.
"I would like to ask a favor of you," he said.
"Of course," said Sonja.
"Your Uncle Fulgencio knows my name. On Bat's recommendation, I have invested money in a casino in Havana. I depend on a man your uncle also knows to keep the operation honest."
"Meyer Lansky," she said.
"You know — Well ... It would be in everyone's best interest — Uncle Fulgencio's, Bat's, and mine — if your uncle were to look sympathetically on an application Meyer Lansky will be making for a license to open a casino-hotel in Havana. He will adhere to the customs, if you follow my meaning."
"He will pay my uncle such bribes as are customary," Sonja said dryly.
"Whatever is customary," said Jonas.
"Will you have money in this?"
"Bat will make that judgment," said Jonas.
"You're letting Bat make judgments? That's something new, isn't it?"
Jonas shrugged weakly. "What else can I do? Anyway, he's smart. He's a Cord ... and a Batista, of course."
"Do you want a word of advice?" she asked.
"Why not?"
"Invest a little more in your relationship with your son. It will pay a better return than any other investment you ever made."
"I do. I let him have his head on that television show. I put money where I shouldn't have put it. We'll be damned lucky if we break even on it."
"I'm not talking about money, Jonas. Investing money is your whole life. It's what you do, and you do it well. What you don't do is invest yourself. You don't commit yourself. Do you love our son?"
"Of course I do."
"Then why don't you tell him?"
"He's never said anything of the kind — " He stopped abruptly, and for a moment Sonja thought he'd felt a hard twinge in his chest. " — to me ..." His voice trailed off, and Sonja was alarmed.